


Double Entendre

by daisybrien



Series: Double Trouble [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, BLUPJEANS BABY, Childbirth, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Family, Family Drama, Family Reunions, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Interdimensional Travel, Kid Fic, Multiple Universes, Multiple Voices, Parenthood, Post-Canon, Pregnancy, Reunions, Sibling Bonding, Siblings, Space Flight, Team as Family, Twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 10:30:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13809330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisybrien/pseuds/daisybrien
Summary: There is a family, formed from decades of running and dying and living. There are parents, lonely and desperate, mourning for the children they know they can never keep. There is a family, and it gains as much as it loses, the cruel mechanisms of fate and the universes deciding what they must leave behind for them.There are two children, universes away, trying to find home.





	Double Entendre

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Finding Family](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12743592) by [PaperbackGarden](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaperbackGarden/pseuds/PaperbackGarden). 



> https://unquestionably-questionable.tumblr.com/post/167292542912/12-okay-okay-consider-blupjeans-have-a-baby
> 
> Remember this post? Yeah. I took matters into my own hands. 
> 
> Thanks to Catalina/casetrippy for helping me come up with baby names, along with suggestions from other folks, you've all been such a great help!

Lup brings the aura of an unfamiliar presence when she slips under the covers, Taako grumbling as he scoots over to the edge of the bed dutifully, rubbing the sleep from his sore, tired eyes. His back is to her front, his fingers gripping hers when they wrap around his side to pull him close. His stomach sinks when he feels the shudder of a sob, stifled by the lump she swallows painfully down her throat, and he turns just slightly towards her as she shoves her face deep into his shoulder.

“Lulu,” he sighs, voice barely breaking the silence of the night hanging over the ship; of the idle hum of the thrumming engine, of the rumbling of the unstable planet below, of the crowds of nearby villages hollering as they dance joyously with the earth as it trembles in time with his sister’s fingers. Lup’s appearance in the night is not unwelcome, and not much of a surprise given the circumstance, her coming for his comfort in the same handful of times in the last month than in the last thirty cycles combined. This is something she can’t go to Barry with, he knows, not right now. 

She responds with a sniff, a swear caught up in the garble of her grief. When she shifts, her weight rocks the bedframe more than it should with her growing weight, and that small but foreign company makes itself known again as the bump of her growing belly presses persistently at the small of his back.

“They’re twins.”

#

It’s the overnight shift at the fifty-second branch of Murmuro’s International Seismography and Public Safety Organization, deep in the heart of the biggest city on the planet’s biggest continent, and Chich is falling asleep over something that is not his paperwork. 

He’s gotten tired of staring at the worrying upward trends of unstable tectonic shifts on the reports that were left on his desk, bored of watching the needles on the seismographs around him tick back and forth with the vibrations of the ground fourteen stories below him just so he can place a tack on the daily graph in order to record the planet’s hourly average. He’s going to have to prepare tomorrow’s predictions before the early morning news airs at ass o’clock – a ridiculous waste of time, and a shitty condolence to the public as a feeble way of ensuring their safety, considering the earthquakes were as predictable as figuring out when a seagull would take a dump on your head, only much more frequent and usually more dangerous. Ma and Pa had known that fact a bit too well, and took it a bit too in stride with their humanitarian work. Maybe that’s why Chich preferred the illusion of safety, restlessly tucked in his office.

Instead, he sits with his mug of burning coffee cupped between his hands, staring down at the blank paper of old, worn journals that he has spread out in front of him on the floor. He’ll shift, every once in a while, the exhaustion making him believe that he could see something if he only looked at just the right angle. His eyes start to sting, and reality begins to take hold as he contemplates putting them away for the night, feeling stupid wasting time just staring down empty pages, only to get more curious at the fact that a mysterious family left them upwards of three dozen empty journals of them-

“Your eyes are gonna pop out if you keep staring like that.”

Chich startles hard enough to spill his coffee over his lap, splattering the sheets in front of him. 

“For fuck’s sake, Iggy,” he groans. “Warn a guy next time.”

“Got you your night-lunch,” she says, and tosses a bag at his head. He swats it away before he can get a concussion. “You want me to get more coffee, or have you fully succumb to the insanity of your insomnia?”

“Shut up,” he says. “You shouldn’t be here, I’m working.”

“Sure you are.” Iggy says. Chich throws a plastic fork at her head, laughing when she yelps in indignation.

“I said shut up,” Chich repeats. He rustles through the bag she brought him, feeling his stomach rumble. 

“Whatever,” she says, looking down at the papers splayed out over the floor. “I mean, with shit this complicated, I would also be staring at it with my mouth all open and my eyes blank.”

“You don’t have to be patronizing,” Chich says.

“I’m not!” his sister replies. “I don’t know man, building stuff was never really up your alley, I’m surprised you didn’t show this to me first. What’s up with the wear on these, though?”

“What the fuck are you talking about-” Chich starts, before looking down. “What the fuck.”

“You got a fan in here or something? You might wanna dry the coffee stains off it-“

“No, no, Iggy.” He reaches down, grabbing one of the sopping papers from the floor. “Iggy. These are from our old journal stashes.”

“Uh,” she says, moving beside him. She peers down over his shoulder, eyes perusing the map of lines and measurements laid out in front of them in shimmering hues of silver, each image sharp and exact against the soggy backdrop of the soiled paper. “Why didn’t you tell me someone wrote in them?”

“Because they didn’t,” he says. He looks at her, her brow furrowed and eyes wide. “This was blank before you came in.”

“O-kay,” she says. She takes the sheet from him, and as Chich’s eyes skim the outline of the coffee stain, the intricate complex lines start to fade, disappearing inwards towards the center of the stain as the coffee’s warmth dissipates in the cool night air. “You’re really fucking with me.”

“It’s the heat,” Chich says. “It’s activated by heat. All of them.”

Iggy looks up at him from over the rim of her glasses, peering at him with a peculiar quirk of her eyebrow. Her fingers dance along the newly revealed map of instructions in front of her, tracing the lines that shape the blueprints for something complex; something that could be dangerous, perhaps amazing. As her eyes pore over it, widening with each second, her face blooms into a smile, opening up towards a new opportunity that sets her alight.

“Holy shit.”

#

“May I have a word with you, officer?”

Lucretia is pulled away from the focus of her script at the knock on her office door, laying her pen down and gently closing her journal as she turns to address the person waiting in her doorway. She is surprised to see Davenport there, his arms laden with scrolls, almost struggling to keep them in his folded arms as she beckons him to enter.

“Captain,” Lucretia acknowledges, blinking as he shuffles in. He seats himself at the edge of her bed, running a hand through his thin hair as he sighs, exhausted. “Any reason for the sudden formality?”

“Agh,” he waves his hand idly, swatting the idea away as soon as it threatened to attend to the setting of their conversation. “Ignore me. I think we have moved quite past the point of formality after all these years.”

“We don’t respect you any less, Captain,” Lucretia responds.

“Oh, I have no doubt,” he assures, offering her a smile for the first time since entering her quarters. “And I appreciate your trust in me after – all this,” he grumbles incoherently, waving his hand to the sky, “this whole journey we all got launched into.” He places the scrolls in his arms by his side, and Lucretia notes the weathered and worn edges, the way the corners curl inwards, yellowed after decades of neglect. “But I believe after so much and so long, mission decorum need not apply to us anymore.”

“It sure doesn’t” Lucretia sighs. She turns, looks out into the horizon of this year’s world, a constant changing scene. “Can I ask why you’re here?”

“I’m sure,” Davenport begins, and the contentment on his face slides off; it pulls the corners of his mouth down, but he is not angry, only anxious with the world around him. “I’m sure that you’ve received the news.”

“I have,” Lucretia says. She picks her pen up, weaving it between her fingers as she glances down into the twisting labyrinth of the city below, small and unassuming from their vantage point. “A baby is always happy news.”

“It is,” Daveport says, before sighing. “It should be,” he amends, leaving unspoken the certainty of why it may not be, why it couldn’t be. 

“It should be,” Lucretia whispers back.

“Fuck,” Davenport breathes, before getting up. “No more depressing shit right now.” He moves to the documents he brought in, unfurling one carefully before Lucretia. “I wanted to ask for your assistance on a project – more like an idea right now, but hopefully something we could really bring into reality.”

The papers roll open, dust rising in swirling plumes from the cracks in the parchment as it reluctantly lays flat, the old busk of a treasure cracking open after years of being stowed away and hidden from prying eyes. Impeccable lines and dizzying text send her mind into a whirlwind as she barely deciphers the full image buried within the puzzle of it. 

Lucretia gasps. “Those are-“

“The blueprints to the bonds engine,” Davenport confirms. Lucretia stands up, inching beside him so they could pore over it together. “Very sensitive information, that I was instructed to keep confidential.”

“Which is why you’re showing this to me,” Lucretia smirks. “And why you’re planning on giving it to two infants?”

The smile on Davenport’s face reappears, the sly grin of a cunning man. “What can I say,” he shrugs. “We have passed the point of convention.”

“Still,” Lucretia half laughs. “This could be so dangerous in the wrong hands.”

“Which is why I would like your help,” he continues. “If these are going to be kept safe and well within the reach of our new additions-” he chooses the last few words carefully, none of them close to parsing the reality of what babies born to their crew means for the entirety of their ramshackle family “- they need to seem unassuming. Look unassuming. I can work out the illusionary magic to disguise the papers, but I need someone to draw them up as a copy. We’ll need ways to keep them from seeming like scrap, and a mechanism to reveal the plans if the time is right.”

“Important, but not too important.”

“Exactly,” he replies. “Something like,” his eyebrows draw together, and his voice grows soft, “like – all the gifts you’re making. They’re more than gifts. They’re memories. Heirlooms. They need it to feel as if it should be kept, even if they don’t know why.”

“You want me to make it into a journal,” Lucretia concludes. Her fingers glide over the grain of the paper, each wrinkle and smudged blotch of ink, her fingers wet with its water stains and must when she removes them. Davenport looks up at her expectantly.

“It’s a piece of work, I know,” he says. “And it would be years before they could even parse the details. But it could be their most tangible connection to us, give them just the slightest, I don’t know, possibility-“

He trails off into thought, and he looks up to Lucretia with his shoulders set square and his eyes deliberate, persevering. There is a spark of hope between them as their eyes meet, the slightest spark of something that could lose its energy and fizzle out at the smallest breeze, tentative but tenacious to even exist in the first place. 

“Can you do it?” he asks, and Lucretia skims the intricate, perfect details of it all, every line and arrow and instruction exact.

“Easy,” she says, and her smile mirrors Davenport’s own as they get to work.

#

“Oh no,” Lup chides as she stumbles into her brother’s room. “Oh no, you’re not doing this again.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Taako replies. He does not turn towards her as she crouches down beside him on the floor – it’s starting to become a struggle for her, navigating the spread of her legs around the bump that’s start to hang heavy in the set of her pelvis, weighing her down just a bit more by the day – only keeping his eyes on his handiwork as he works over the coal in his grip, his fingertips pitch from hours of repeated scrutiny. His wand etches across its surface in minute movements, its touch slowly dispelling the dark chalkiness and revealing shimmering jewel beneath that they both know wasn’t there before.

“Just because you’re the world’s best transmutation wizard-“

“Um, excuse you,” Taako interrupts, and he blinks up at her with a flourish of his hand, twirling his wand idly like a baton and not an ancient artifact from universes ago with the capacity to turn dirt into gold into food into dynamite. “Cha’boy hasn’t graced multiple planar systems for his legacy to be trapped within one measly planet, ya feel?”

“That doesn’t mean you can make counterfeit currency,” Lup scolds. She plucks the coal from his fingertips, inspecting the half already transformed under her brother’s hand. It catches the light as she turns it in her grasp, light refracting through the ruby red center of the uncut gem in stark contrast to the dull half of coal still enveloping it.

“’S not like I’m gonna be the one spending it,” Taako says, snatching the rock from her. She tries to grab it back, only for her brother to thrust his other hand in her face. She yelps as he shoves her back.

“Hey!” she cries. “You can’t shove a pregnant lady!”

Taako only blows a raspberry at her before getting back to his work. Despite the disapproval painting her face, she leans over to look at his process, perching her chin on his shoulder as the tip of his wand twitches carefully back and forth, like he was scratching the surface to find the jewel underneath instead of transmuting the entire thing to its core.

“Seriously though,” she says, “if you’re going to con another planet I’m gonna have to tell Davenport.” She doesn’t move, giving no indication that she would stop him.

“Oh please,” Taako groans, “pregnancy is turning you into such a mom.”

“That’s kinda the point.”

“It’s not like I’m using it for my own gain,” Taako continues. His tongue pokes out between his teeth, his words disjointed with paused bouts of concentration marked by the furrow of his brow and the squint of his eye as he leans forward to inspect his progress. “And this hoard is gonna be locked up safe once you find the richest damn foster family to build interest on it.”

“Taako,” Lup sighs. He stops his handiwork, cheeks burning; he turns towards her, ready to open his arms and apologize for going too far, but only finds her smiling softly back at him. “Really?”

“Hey, I’m being practical for once in my life. Sorry that my gift isn’t all about that heartfelt mushy crack y’all have been on just thinking of the concept of the squabbling gremlins you and Barold whipped up, gods I don’t want to even think of it.” Lup sticks her tongue out at him. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. Like, your room is right beside mine and the hormones are making you too horny to put up a fuckin’ silencing spell, apparently, because if I have to hear Barry talk about giving my precious innocent niblings dimples one more time-“

Lup shrieks out a laugh, attempting to gyrate her hips with a wink that only turns into an uncoordinated wiggle from her perch on the floor. Taako gags, and it only makes her laugh harder, her hand coming up to hold the curve of her belly as she bends over with the force of it.

“You’re killing me, Lulu,” he says in mock sincerity. “I am actually, legiterally being murdered and I will absolutely take my riches with me if you’re going to slay me in cold blood like that.

“Now let me get back to work,” he says, and once she’s settled down, she picks through the stacks of tiny gold pieces littering his bedroom floor, tucked away in the dirty laundry strewn across every possible surface. “’cha boy’s got double the work to do now that he’s got to send two niblings to college.”

#

It takes a few days to search through old family records, files and histories of debts paid and pending, keys and codes and accounts later before they are able to unearth the old, dusty papers that point them towards the storage garage that houses their baby stuff. 

Iggy tears through it with abandon, opening chests and boxes of memorabilia in wide eyed wonder as her brother meanders a few steps behind her, watching her apprehensively as he worries his lip with his teeth. There are letters that she unfolds fast enough to rip in two, her eyes rushing back and forth too fast to fully absorb the words; boxes of toys lovingly carved from polished wood, bears and ducks on wheels with a string and building blocks; twin pairs of jackets, the rough denim sliding rough against her skin as the shoulders slip perfectly square with the set of her shoulders, and when she wishes the sleeves dropped slightly lower she can feel the buttons on the cuffs suddenly brush against her fingertips.

There are more still, and she drags Chich into the throng of cases stacked up to their chins. He starts opening them slowly; the first is small, and he unfurls two red baby blankets that glide like satin through his fingertips. The second is heavy, its contents shifting haphazard within the cardboard.

“Bingo,” he mutters. His tongue pokes out between his teeth as he lifts each bare, empty journal from the box, laying them out side by side as Iggy keeps exploring, completely enthralled. He runs his fingers over the etching of the covers, the spines cracking as he opens them and is greeted with the smell of mildew. 

He snaps his fingertips, conjuring a small flame that he cradles carefully in his palm. He shifts it underneath the papers, the light and heat below shining through, the once unadorned pages alight with the details of hidden blueprints. The drawings almost glitter, gold and silver and shimmering as it reacts to the heat.

“So this is complicated,” Chich says to himself. “And probably way too expensive to make.”

“Sourpuss,” Iggy replies, her voice muffled behind the mountain of heirlooms that hides her from view. A couple boxes fall, and he hears her shriek.

“You alright?” He calls, rushing around the corner. He lets out a breath when he sees she isn’t hurt, only to be baffled to see her giddy smile, gaping open, her laugh hysterical.

“Holy shit,” she giggles deeply, turning back to the chest in front of her. She buries her hands into its contents, and Chich can hear the clink of metal chiming cacophonous through her hands. “Holy shit!”

“Holy- what the fuck?” He looks over his shoulder, almost blinded by the gold glinting back at him.

“What was that about the cost?” Iggy retorts, shrieking with laughter as she rains gold over her head. 

#

IPRE protocol states that someone who needs to enter or work within the engine rooms of a long distance travel spacecraft be accompanied by at least one other individual. It’s one bullet point on a list of rules and drills hammered into Davenport’s head after years of training and climbing his way up the ranks. His memory has earned him his spot through competency and skill. He should not be repairing a busted hydraulic pipe on his own. 

He laughs to himself at the thought, the sound turned sour with the bitter taste on his tongue. Decorum need not apply to this godforsaken craft anymore.

Not that what he was doing needed two people in the first place. He knew the labyrinth of the engine room like the back of his hand, can locate each and every panic switch or emergency shutdown, can recite the codes needed to unlock the instruments’ capacity to engage in flight way beyond the dangers of evasive maneuvers. A simple pipe poses him a problem no bigger than a piece of green stuck between his teeth; nothing more than an irritancy easily fixed by the fiddling of a careful hand. But even as he cranks the pressure gauges back to optimal levels, ready to return to the bridge, he remains in the hull of the ship, its twisting metal organs that keep the ship alive his only company. 

He sighs, pacing the narrow walkways that wind together with the machinery like woven thread. His feet clack against the metal floor, echoing in the emptiness. 

None of this was the plan. None of this wonderful, terrifying adventure was supposed to happen. It was merely an accident; a single hitch in their strategy, enough to render their existence impossibly beyond the expectations any of the seven of them could have ever comprehended until they found themselves within these machination, dying and living and loving within this one reality.

This is not what Davenport signed up for.

If he fails to concentrate on the hisses and clanks of the engine room, if he stops keeping his body moving along the metal path and his mind on the checklist he’d memorized decades ago, he can almost hear the sound of the two of them crying again. Their sobs had drifted from the recreation rooms into his quarters, Lup’s sorrow a tangible thing that wrapped its hands around his chest and squeezed the air out of him until he couldn’t breathe properly. When he had chosen her – and her brother, always a set – impressed by her skill and ambition and cheek, he knew that death was – and always would be, with any space mission – a very plausible outcome. 

Falling in love, gaining a family; starting a family only for it to slip from her fingers so easily. Out of everything Davenport was told the mission entailed, he had never thought this was something he would need to prepare for, to write down on a list of briefing notes to be submitted to prospective members of his crew. It was never in the plan they threw out the window a long time ago.

He finishes his rounds of the mechanical wards, looping back to the exit leading into the ship’s main hall again. He is terrified, heartbroken for his party, a family he found in a time of never-ending crisis he has learned to chuckle through and enjoy, knowing he would have to do the same here, power on like the leader he is and will always have to be, plan or not.

#

Chich loses count of the bumps on his head about a week into building the damn whatever-it-is from the blueprints they unearthed. His back aches from lying flat on the rolling plank for hours on end, his eyes stinging from the grease and oil that drip onto him from the underbelly of the strange machine. He’s forgotten what the feeling of having arms is like after so long reaching up from his vantage point, and the next time he sits up only for his forehead to crash against the edge of a metal lip, he think’s he will well and truly snap for good. 

He tries not to think of the dangers of this massive engine, all heavy, crushing metal and gears hanging above him on rickety table legs. He grits his teeth and bears through when the electrical wiring fizzles and sparks in his hands, charring his skin into hard, dark calluses. And instead of dwelling on whether their scraps bought piecemeal from town markets and deep within the dark alleyways of sketchier – but pricier, and better quality, always better quality, he notes wryly – businesses will work sewn together by wires and bolts meant to be made on a planet dozens of universes away, he listens to his sister ramble on.

The lull of her voice sets their labour into a gentle, almost choreographed rhythm, the two passing tools and scraps and even bites of food between each other like well-oiled clockwork. Chich listens intently as he cranks bolts into place, grows dizzy with the stench of welded metal, nodding along as she rambles about interdimensional travel, of planar systems and the barriers of time and space between universes, of the capabilities of transportation magic with the equipment they’re building in their own garage. 

“Do you think that it'll actually work?” Chich asks one day, hiding the doubt in his voice. For once, he wants to be hopeful, to believe that this possibility was more than just a buoy set afloat into the ocean for him to cling to as he drowns. As if on cue, the ground rumbles beneath their feet, stray screws dancing on the concrete floor as the garage is knocked about until the moment passes. 

Just slightly stronger. Slightly stronger, every day, before the tectonics tear the planet he doesn’t know how to call home in two.

“I’ve worked through the math of it,” Iggy says. There is oil streaked in her russet hair, and her hands are worn, blood seeping from beneath one of her nails. “If what the blueprints show is right, and we’re able to conjure the magic strong enough to power it,” she skims through notes, picking at the red nail polish chipping on her thumb, “theoretically it should work.”

“Do you,” Chich begins, chewing over his words carefully. “Do you think we’ll find another home?”

Iggy chews her lip as she shuffles through the tools on her belt. Chich rolls himself under the engine again, afraid to see the fear on her face, afraid of her seeing his in return. The aftershocks of the last earthquake rumble through the ground like a low hum, gentle enough that they’ve been raised to barely notice it. 

“I think,” Iggy says, “I think there is a home waiting for us out there. I think, if they gave us this,” Chich fastens the piece he’s working on in place, sliding into its position with a satisfying click. He listens, waiting patiently. “I think they’re waiting for us to find it. Find them again.”

“I hope you’re right,” Chich mumbles, low enough that she can’t hear him. His eyes begin to sting with more than grease. “Don’t want to wait to see if the goons on this earth make outer space living a reality before it all goes to shit.”

He extends a hand out from under their lifeline, and Iggy wordlessly gives him a wrench in return, the two settling back into their routine.

#

Barry’s whirlwind of a mind begins to settle down only once he’s leaned it against the mound of Lup’s stomach. He lays sideways on the bed, legs curled up against his chest as he wraps his arms lovingly around her abdomen and tenderly runs his hands in rhythmic spirals around it. The slow, gentle rise and fall of Lup’s body as she breathes, shaking slightly as she laughs fondly at him, lulls him into a cozy stupor, and his eyes start to droop slowly at the touch of Lup’s fingers running through his hair.

The swell of her stomach has become his favourite place in the universe.

The torpor he’s lazily drifted into is knocked a kilter as Lup shifts beneath him. He lets out a little hum of concern, knocking his glasses crooked as he rubs the sleep seeping into him from his eyes. Lup groans as she heaves herself higher onto the mountain of pillows laid out for her, arms straining to balance herself as the lower half of her drags itself behind her effort. Barry wedges an arm below her lower back, kissing away the wrinkle of her brow as he helps her sit up.

“Are you comfortable?” he frets, and Lup just smiles – the adorable smile she gives him when she’s almost exasperated by his worry, crinkling her nose in a way that makes Barry’s heart stutter faster than his words – and waves him away. “Is your back hurting you?”

“You stop it,” she chides. Her arms find their way around his neck, and Barry thinks he’s about to be pulled into a kiss before he’s pushed back down against her again, his ear to her bellybutton. He doesn’t protest.

He pushes his hand under the hem of her tank top, lifting it over her bump so he can kiss the stretchmarks on her skin directly. He hums, peppering her with soft kisses before starting to grow more impish; he starts poking her, fingers pressing deep into the skin, and his heart swells when he feels someone poke him back in response.

“Barry,” Lup groans, stopping him mid-poke by lacing her fingers with his, their palms flat against her skin. “They legit only settled down now, and here you are making them get all restless again.”

“Oh, I’m sorry love,” Barry croons, more to her stomach than her. Lup only rolls her eyes at him.

“You think they’re going to be troublemakers?” he asks, his voice wistful as her stomach shifts against his cheek. He stops to whisper a greeting into her skin and gets a sharp kick in response.

“Oh, for sure,” Lup sighs. “Can’t even wait to cause chaos until I plop them out.”

“They get it from you,” he replies. He expects more than Lup’s indignant snort of a laugh, a shove to his shoulder or the swat of her hand, but only the jumps and shifts of her belly accent the silence that fall over the room.

“Do you think they’ll have your brains?” Lup asks, deep in thought. When Barry peeks up at her, her eyes stare far off into the distance, her face set like she was dreaming something soft and sad. 

“Maybe,” he replies, his voice caught on the same breeze of an envisioned future that she was floating away on.

“I hope they do,” she continues. “They’ll be super clever. And they’ll have the same birthmark you have behind your ear.”

“I hope they have your eyes,” he says. “Those wide, dark eyes no one could ever say no to them.”

“I hope they have your sense to match their devil streaks,” she says. “All the messes they’ll get into, they’ll know how to get out of just as easily.”

“I hope they have your spirit,” he says, “both of yours. Keeping them together.”

“I hope so, too,” she breathes, her words lost behind the thrum of the engine as it whirs in the belly of the ship, a gentle whine that resonates deep in Barry’s bones, settling them into a wavelength that to his ears would just beat out the words _home, home, home_. 

“Gods, I hope so,” she says again, and Barry is sitting up, wrapping her up in his arms, pressing kisses against her hair as he tries to keep himself from crying with her.

“I’m sorry, love,” Barry soothes, whispering the words against her temple. “Lup, I’m sorry, I know there’s so much to hope for-“

“Fuck!” Lup cries. She pries herself from Barry’s arms, running hands through her hair that grip the roots and tug sharply. Two single lines stain her face, outlining the swell of her cheeks as they fall from her eyes down to her trembling chin where they meet. She takes in a sharp breath, a harsh gasp that rattles in her lungs and wracks her shoulders violently.

“Fuck, Barry,” she weeps, leaning into his chest. Her words are broken by the breaths between her sobs, a staccato beat, hard and piercing like the crack of a bullet. “I don’t want to just hope! It’s not enough just to hope that they look or act or are something, it’s not enough to hope that they’re gonna have a good life. I can’t fucking hope a warm house and good food into existence! What the fuck are we doing, twiddling our thumbs and just hoping our babies will know and feel loved as if they can live off good fucking intention, as if that’s enough to keep them from starving.”

“Lup,” Barry says. “Lup, they will be safe. We’ve got a family here who’s already promised us – whose promised them all of that. With a safe, warm house, with enough food, with enough love for them to know how special they are.”

“I don’t care!” she screams, and she buries her face into her hands, weeping as Barry clutches her. His own tears fall into her hair. “I don’t fucking care, I want more than hope, I want more than knowing. Barry, I want to see, I want to hear them laugh and watch them grow, I don’t want to just know that they’re safe and happy, I want to give it to them myself!”

“I know,” Barry whispers as she settles, sinking deeper into his arms as he rocks her, cries with her. He watches the seconds tick by on their bedroom clock, wonders how much he can give in the little time the two still have here. “I know.

“I think,” he starts, and his hand finds hers again, the two cradling her bump in their linked grasp. “I know, that they’ll find our love, and I know that we’ll see them again.” His thumb brushes back and forth against her knuckles, and something bumps up against their palms, a soft kick that is repeated in tandem between the two sitting safely between their parents. “And when we see them again, you’ll make them so much food they’ll be sick, and we’ll have two rooms ready, beds and dressers all aligned, and books stacked to the ceiling, all prepared for them. And we can give them that.”

Lup sighs, pulling him closer so he can let her lose herself in his arms. “I hope so.”

#

“I hope the people on this planet are nice,” Chich says. He pants as he makes his way down the mossy trail that leads to the mosaic of tents in the distance, his sister breathing in time with him as their packs bend their backs forward and the blue light of this little, floral planet’s sun burns the tips of their ears.

“I hope they have the equipment in order to fix this shit,” Iggy adds. She heaves, readjusting the rope slung over her shoulder and wound in her chafed hands. The cord is pulled taut as they lurch forward, inch by inch, dragging along their busted vessel; mostly engine, with a makeshift pod and a glittering time-space coordinate system that took up the leg space of its two shoulder-to-shoulder seats, the little podlike ship was a miracle of an invention, an amalgamation of spare and unstable arcana that couldn’t help but fizzle out at just shy of a dozen multi-universal jumps.

They haul their cargo in tandem, and Chich laughs as he looks up into the vast purple sky. Despite the ache in his shoulders from the weight of his backpack, there is a lightness in his chest, like the broiling anxiety in him had been freed once he left the stifling office of seismographs behind, his worries taking flight like a bird from his ribcage. 

“It’s like when we were kids,” he says. His eyes sting with sweat, a refreshing pain tuned to the burn of his muscles. “When we played adventure in the garden.”

“Ma always got mad,” Iggy chimes in, her voice soft as a bell, “because we would always go off the paths and wreck the flowers.”

“We’d run into the house to keep her from grounding us, only for her to get more angry when we tracked our muddy boots around the house!”

“And now look at us.” Iggy celebrates by raising her face to the sky, her arms outstretched as her fingers play with the rush of the humid wind. “Dirty as hell, in our own real adventure.”

“She’d have a heart attack if she knew we’d even thought of going to space,” Chich says, “let alone this.”

“Gods,” Iggy muses. “I loved Ma and Pa, but I hope our parents are cooler than them.”

“Motherfuckers broke time and space hard enough to drop us in another universe. I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that.”

“I hope they’re not too far,” Iggy continues. 

“I don’t think distance really applies here,” Chich says. “And with all of these worlds to see, I wonder if we could just keep going.”

Iggy stops, looking at him. “You think we could do this forever?”

“Theoretically.”

“Would you want to?”

Chich shifts the rope in his hand, flinging it over his head so it can dig into his other shoulder. He presses on forwards, prodding his sister when he can’t pull their little life raft forward alone.

“I hope we don’t have to,” Chich says. “I hope that Mom and Dad have settled down, found their home like they said they always wanted in their letters.” The thought sets a pit of uneasiness in his stomach, one that twists and turns like a restless sleeper anticipating the next morning, excited but deeply afraid of the disappointment it could bring, the disillusion of a reality that will force his attention. He was never the idealist of the pair.

“I hope they’re prepared for us to crash land straight into their nice little cozy domestic bullshit,” Iggy cackles. “And that they have nice king-sized beds for the two of us, with the fancy canopies. One each, too, ‘cha girl is tired of sleeping on those cheap singles the inns can’t bother to wash.”

“They better,” Chich laughs, letting himself dwell in his sister’s optimism as he picks up his pace.

#

“For fuck’s sake, Magnus,” Lup laughs from in front of him. His hands are persistent on her back, his fingers curling in anticipation as he leads her on through the corridor into his room. “Do I have to wear this?”

“Absolutely!” Magnus chirps. He’s smiling ear to ear, and can feel the laughter shaking Lup’s shoulders as he urges her reluctant form on. She reaches up to lift her blindfold, and Magnus grabs her wrist and gently pins it behind her. “Nope! It’s a surprise. Blindfold stays on.”

“Ooh, I wonder what it could be,” Lup croons sardonically. Her walk has turned into more of a waddle at this stage, her stomach ballooning out in front of her, introducing her presence into a room before she gets there. Magnus can feel her resisting him, and he lets go obediently. She doesn’t move to grab the cloth over her eyes again, grinning as she moves along with his scheme.

Magnus leads her over the threshold into his room, bouncing on his feet with anticipation as he rubs his hands together. He positions Lup in front of her present. “You can take it off.”

She turns towards his general direction, lopsided grin wrinkling the fabric of the blindfold as the apples of her cheeks fill out and dimple. She doesn’t take it off. “It’s a crib, isn’t it.”

Magnus deflates, a whoosh of air that leaves him loudly enough for Lup to recognize, making her laugh.

“I worked so hard,” Magnus whines, moving in to hug her. “You could at least act surprised.”

She turns away from him, back towards the crib as she lifts her blindfold onto her forehead. Her hand shoots up to grasp at her chest, and she steps back with a mocking gasp of shock as her eyes bug out exaggeratingly at the cradle in front of her. Magnus guffaws.

“Good enough?” Lup asks. When she’s done her little piece, she steps towards the work, running her hand over the grain. The wood is sturdy, the legs and corners curving elegantly like the arch of tree branches coaxed into ballet poses, spindles carved into simple but dazzling shapes, every joint sanded down until there was not a single sharp corner in sight. She smiles, all white teeth and shining eyes. “Is this oak?”

“Yup!” Magnus says.

“Did you paint it?” She glides a fingernail over the natural lines hidden in the wood, dyed a gentle eggshell white.

“Staining,” Magnus corrects. “Makes it look more soft but shows the grain of the wood underneath so you get that natural vibe. And non-toxic, everything non-toxic. Even the scent, I used the local variety of violet for it-“

“Magnus,” Lup sighs, looking into the crib to see stacks of wooden toys, all painted haphazardly by hand, sanded down into baby-safe rounded corners. 

“-because you know, you want everything to be relaxing when you put babies to bed. You want it to rock smoothly, you want the mattress to be firm but comfortable, you want it to smell nice-“

“Magnus,” Lup says again, interrupting his speech. She leans down to pick one of many wooden ducklings from the pile, running her nail through every intricate dip and curve of the feathers etched into the surface. “You did all this?”

“Do you like it?” he asks, looking at her expectantly. “I was going to make a rocking chair for you, get your measurements, but I wanted to give you what I have now so you can get it ready before-“

“You were going to make me a rocking chair with my own ass groove?” Lup says, her voice warbling. Her eyes start to well up, a hand cover her mouth as a sob bubbles up.

“Oh no,” Magnus says, rushing forward to hug her. “No, no, no, I didn’t mean it that way, Lup, don’t worry, you’re not getting too fat!”

Lup lets out a single laugh at that; it sounds more like a honk as she weeps into Magnus’ chest, and she would be embarrassed if she wasn’t busy getting all heartfelt and emotional over baby gifts. 

“God, like I care,” she says into his shirt. “Was fat. Two of us are already fat.”

“Yeah, and we’re hot.”

“Fuck yeah we are,” she hoots as she pulls away, still tucked under Magnus’ arm but able to get another full look at the crib and the little trinkets resting within. “But gods, Magnus, this is so much, this is too much, I can’t believe-“

She stops, tears flowing freely down her face now, hand cupped over her mouth as her body is wracked with silent sobs. Magnus squeezes her close, holding her tight until she can find her words again.

“Thank you,” she finally sniffs, pulling away to rub her eyes, grimacing as she wipes her nose on her knuckles and leaves a trail behind. 

“Gross.”

“Shut up,” she says. She reaches in, pulls out what looks like a simple wooden cylinder that Magnus begins to fuss over immediately.

“Ah, be careful,” he worries, adjusting her fingers and holding it up to the light. “That one’s very fragile.” 

Light shines through the wood, the walls of the cylinder thin as gossamer as the silhouette of a jellyfish shines through, sheltered in the center of its tiny wooden tank. Lup sighs, and cradles the little trinket to her chest, looking up to Magnus with a sad smile.

“Thank you,” she says again, opening up her arms for another hug that Magnus never hesitates to reciprocate. “You’ve all been so gross and mushy and heartfelt about this, but I can’t thank you guys enough.

“It means so much,” she continues, words muffled against Magnus’ shoulder. His hand rubs soothing circles into her aching back, her stomach making the distance of their embrace comically large. “You guys can’t know just how much, I just don’t know what we’d do-“

“Hey, none of that now,” Magnus soothes, and Lup quiets against him as one of the twins kick him in the bellybutton, the tiniest, barely there poke against his front that makes Lup stifle a grunt. “We’re here. No matter what.”

#

Starting the trek from one universe to another is not the jump into warp speed you expect to see in science-fiction, no rush of acceleration that leaves your stomach behind as the stars around you blip past faster than you can blink. It is not even a special journey, the way you’d expect to leave one place, walking past and through many other to get to your destination, never in the same place you were or will be. The fourth-to-fifth dimension that makes the gaps between universes tangible is governed by physical laws they don’t think numbers could define.

The burst of brilliant light from the engine’s arcane core, the strength of which has shattered wands in Chich’s hands more than once, begins the leap with a lurch that is more of a stretch. They enter extra-universal ether like someone peeking their head through a doorway, peering out into the colourscape their eyes were not built to comprehend as their bodies bend and extend to the contortions of time and non-space. Their atoms stretch, their vessel wrapping into itself like a Mobius strip as it enters the next universe all before they’ve really left the last. Iggy taps the buttons in front of her; the coordinates don’t really ever change despite the vastly different space they always find themselves in, but sweat still beads on her brow as the chemistry of their surroundings distort and reform around her and she forces herself to hold her concentration steady. 

The first time they left their universe behind, which was less about leaving the space behind and more like the space around them had dropped off into something new, they had promptly vomited their brains out. But after dozens of jumps, they had settled into the nerve-wracking routine, and knew how to keep their lunches down.

Chich almost brings it back up this time, because there’s a jellyfish in front of him.

Two massive, iridescent, technicolor, terrifying omens, shaped like jellyfish, were floating in front of their cracked and blurry porthole window, and they were singing to them.

Chich screams without words, mouth agape as the air leaves his lungs. The tune they hum rattles the metal around them, their seven simple notes blasting in his eardrum, thumping behind his eyelids, the plates between his vertebrae vibrating like someone had struck a dozen tiny gongs. 

“This is it,” his sister weeps, her voice broken as the story hits them like a brick over the head, agonizingly beautiful. There are tears streaming down her face. 

Her hands tremble over the buttons in front of her, and the engine shrieks in protest as ribbons of light shoot out from its center like the shockwave of a bomb. Two different scenes play out, snapping by like faster than light, then three, then four, again and again as Iggy pushes the engine to its limits. The song chimes like church bells beckoning epiphany, the end of a thin, long tendril showing them the way, and before the new, final world can form around them Chich hears a soft resonation, the jellyfish cooing amicably as if it were greeting a long lost friend.

#

Merle is not the best at this delivering babies thing.

He’s the most qualified to perform the nitty-gritty of it out of the rest of them, sure. He’s also a firm proponent of letting Lup lead the way in the process. He’s an advocate for the natural, and is excellent at preaching its aptitudes in a way that can bring comfort and reassurance just shy of a pain numbing spell. It’s a sock that slips on just a bit too tight for him by now, a function of the body predictable enough that he is keen to follow Lup’s demand to stay as far from where-her-sun-don’t-shine as possible.

He realizes a bit too late that he wasn’t quite as vigilant as he should have been; he’s downstairs, helping Taako steady his hands as he shakes with nerves in the kitchen when Lup _screams_. The rest of the crew all but shrieks for him from her room, the chorus of his name falling flat when he enters to see Barry laugh-crying over a baby, squawking and squirming, in his arms. 

There’s a bit of kerfuffle as they get readjusted where Merle is able to get most of his confidence back again, but a bit of it slips away when he presses his hands around her belly, feeling for the head of the baby still waiting to meet the world and finding it pointed up towards her diaphragm. He doesn’t let it show, only settles in front of Lup, smiling calmly as Barry and Magnus prop her up so she can sit at the edge of the bed, Taako pressed behind her with the first baby swaddled in his vice of a grip. Lucretia and Davenport sit frozen by the side, waiting to be called on for the donkey work.

“Well, they’re both certainly gonna be a pain in the ass at this rate,” Merle quips. He slips on a pair of gloves, and before Lup can protest through the pain he pats her knee and says, “this one’s intent on showing me a full moon.”

Taako giggles behind his sister before he can catch himself, horror instantly painting his face. “Don’t you worry now,” he says, “it’s not anything to panic about at all, it’s just gonna be slow going from here on out. You’re gonna be listening to me through this, I’ll be telling you what ta do every step of the way, yeah?”

He looks to Lup, who steels herself before shutting her eyes; Barry brushes a hand over her forehead, moving back to cup her neck as she lurches forward, the blood still covering his hand staining her hair as she leans in to the touch, whimpering as she seeks his comfort. She looks to Merle and nods. 

“’Atta girl,” he reassures, and Lup groans as she bears down, all muscle and sheer force that threatens to tear her apart.

What Merle feels next is most definitely not an ass, and a little more confidence dissipates.

It slips out with his hand; one small, tensed leg hanging out almost comically. Merle sticks his tongue in his cheek as the next foot flops out reluctantly, making Lup call out through clenched teeth. 

“I know, Lup, you’re doing great, sweetheart,” he says. He shifts an elbow up to wipe the sweat starting to run down his temple. “Small pushes now, that’s fantastic. Barry, why don’t you wipe her forehead with the cloth Lucretia gave you – that’s it…”

He would laugh at Barry’s doe-eyed expression if he couldn’t feel Taako glaring daggers at him from over Lup’s shoulder, the first baby starting to cry again as he holds it tight. He continues his coaching, more for himself than for Lup – who, despite the exhaustion starting to pale her face and add an edge to her groans, has gripped her concentration in white-knuckled fists and continues to work it to the bone relentlessly – and soon a butt shows itself, followed by the curve of a back. He wraps his arms around the still unborn baby’s torso, and can feel the umbilical cord pulled taut against their stomach. 

“We got this,” he says. “You gotta push for me again now,” he says, pulling just strong enough to help without causing any harm. They repeat the motions at the next contraction, and Lup cries out.

The baby doesn’t budge. 

“Shit,” he mutters, and with a twitch of the head he beckons Lucretia over, who kneels down beside him, her face etched with fear.

“What’s going on?” Lup asks before he can tell Lucretia to stop looking like a deer in headlights.

“Baby’s just being a troublemaker, Lucretia’s just gonna help me twist so her arms come out,” he replies, looking pointedly at Lucretia, who stumbles through getting a pair of gloves on before tentatively placing her hands above Merle’s. “Everything’s gonna be fine,” he lies, meeting Lup’s eyes with another smile. “You’re doing fantastic.”

He hears Barry echo his words, but Merle doesn’t have to time listen to him wax poetic over Lup’s strength as he turns the baby slowly; there’s resistance, at first, and he readjusts himself before he can get proper traction. He manages to turn the baby to the side so it’s belly points towards Lup’s left leg, and a shoulder shimmies its way out, Merle sighing in relief as the arm follows. He repeats the motion in the opposite direction, Lucretia hooking her finger under an elbow to pull the second arm down.

“Nice,” Merle says, impressed. Lucretia laughs at his praise, breathy and just a little hysterical. 

It’s only the head he has to worry about now, but he can feel the minutes ticking by – four? Five? Six? Too many already, too much time with baby’s lifeline pulled tight as a cord, pressed flat between mother and baby – as he follows Lup’s lead again. 

The noise that comes out of her is raw, animalistic, the sinews of her neck flexing under her skin as she strains. Merle tries to ease the head out, only for it to prove as stubborn as before.

Too much time, it’s taking too much time. His heart begins to race in his chest, tension palpable in the air. 

He tries again. The baby still doesn’t budge.

“Lucretia,” he mutters, showing her instead of telling her what to do as he positions her hands against the lower curve of Lup’s stomach and tells her to push down, hard. “Do it together, you two,” he says, trying to keep his voice even, “just give our little guy the help she needs, and she’ll be here in no time.”

Lup heaves again. Magnus chants like a soccer coach by her side, telling her to _go go go_ , Barry and Taako murmuring gentle encouragement between their own panicked breaths that begins to crescendo as Merle begins to angle the baby upwards. Barry catches sight of the baby’s feet and starts crying again, even Davenport cheering, and Merle is still trying to get the baby to move –

She flops into his arms, sticky and slippery in his hands as he leads her into his lap so he can rub her back to ease the fluid from her lungs. Her limbs are stiff, the tips of her digits blue.

“Come on,” Merle murmurs, his hand more forceful and persistent on her back. No one speaks around him, everyone afraid to move. 

“Davenport, towels please,” he says, something just to fill the silence as he smacks her bottom. “Lucretia,” he continues, and she stands readily by his side even when he doesn’t give her any instructions, too intent on the baby in front of him, too busy to give out a task he knows is just meant to busy their hands.

“Merle,” Lup’s voice breaks the silence again. The word comes out as a warning, a shaking plea that errs towards toppling over the edge of desperation. “Merle, please.”

“Come on,” he breathes, flicking the bottom of her feet, tuning out the sound of the bundle in Taako’s arms crying out for her sister –

The baby in his hands sputters, her limbs jumping and her fingers splaying out as they reach out in frantic search for her mother. The room around him collectively lets out the breath it had been holding, erupting into a gentle cacophony of laughter and cheers.

“There you go!” Merle exclaims; he turns the baby so she can lie on her stomach along his lower arm, rubbing her back as she coughs before she lets out a fully fledged wail. “Wasn’t so bad, was it? You had us all worried sick for a minute, I thought your uncle was gonna pass out!”

“Fuck you, old man,” Taako mutters. Mascara runs down his cheeks as he shifts to sit in front of his sister, passing her first baby back before gesturing for Merle to hand her the second. He thinks everyone’s crying now; Merle watches through tears as Davenport wipes at his eyes discreetly, Magnus bear-hugging Lucretia as he sobs hard on her shoulder, all of them watching the scene unfold in front of him as Barry, Lup, and Taako huddle close. 

“Oh, thank you,” Lup smiles, her voice gentle as her arms fold around the two bundles pressed against her chest. “Thank you, thank you,” she cries, moving to kiss her children’s heads as Barry weeps with joy on her shoulder. Their faces peek between the folds of their blankets, tiny hands reaching for each other, searching for the other person they had shared their home with for nine months, finding the comfort of each other as they settle against their mother and face the bright lights and new sounds of an entirely different world.

#

Chich barely has time to cast Feather Fall before he hits water, seawater burning as it floods his eyes and forces its way up his nostrils and in his throat, leaving him coughing up bubbles until his head can break the surface. 

He splutters as his lungs strain, wheezing and coughing up salty residue every time an ocean wave crests over his head, a rhythmic, repetitive battle between his need for air and swallowing down gulps of water that invade his senses. The world around him is indistinct, his glasses knocked off on impact and lost to the depths forever, and his head whips around frantically in search for their ramshackle ship, for the nearest landmass, for anything – for his sister.

He can’t find his sister.

“Iggy!” he cries, yelling as his feet flail under him, scrambling for purchase on the open nothingness beneath him. He spins around; there’s another ship nearby - really close by, in fact - and he can hear voices calling for him. He doesn’t care, not even as its hull begins to loom over him and a preserver is thrown down beside him. He only spins around as he treads water, trying to find her body against the blur of the vast blue surrounding him. “Ignacia!”

The voices become more urgent, and he feels something wrap around his waist, digging into his stomach as he is hoisted up above the surface of the water. The pressure on his gut makes him wrench seawater over his chin, his limbs clambering against the nose of the ship as someone grabs him by his backpack. He’s flung onto the deck like a ragdoll, face against cool wood, his clothes clinging to him as his shivers.

“Are you okay, son?” someone says; there’s a gnome by his side, fiery salt-and-pepper mustache turned down in a frown of concern as he lifts Chich so he’s somewhat off the floor. “What in the world-?”

“Sister.” It’s the first word out of his mouth, a wet, despairing wheeze as he grips the collar of the gnome in front of him. “My sister. She’s still in there. I don’t know- I lost her, she’s still there she might have drowned please-!”

“Dav!” The two of them are interrupted by someone calling from the stern of the vessel, both of them turning towards it. “There’s someone else in the water!”

Chich is up and following the gnome – Dav – immediately as he runs to the other end of the ship, his slick feet slipping on the wooden deck and making him fall on his knees hard enough to split skin. He trips as he rights himself, catching up to see a dwarf struggling to lift something – someone – over the railing.

“Oh gods,” Chich says, rushing forward to grab the two men as they heave – the dwarf’s fingers are clenched tight around Iggy’s ankle, her upper body still submerged, dragged along by the current, but she’s there, thank gods she’s there. His body screams with the aftershock of the collision, his muscles straining as the three of them pull, barely budging until they finally stagger backwards, the rest of her flopping unceremoniously onto the deck.

She lays there, lifeless, her face pale and lips blue from the cold. Blood trickles from the top of her head, painting her face in wet streaks and staining her hair, and her arm sits at an irregular angle that make’s Chich’s stomach lurch again. He tries to rush forward, only to be held back; he fights until he watches the dwarf flip her onto her back, everything about her slack, and his knees give out beneath him.

“Oh gods,” he weeps. A blanket is wrapped around his shoulders as he shivers violently, an arm squeezing him tight.

“She’ll be fine,” Dav says beside him, his voice soft, composed. “She’s going to be fine, Merle’s got her now…”

Chich watches as Merle’s hands glow with light, white as milk as he glides the wisps of it over her chest and face before his hands intertwine, and he puts his weight into them as he compresses her chest, once, twice, three times, losing count. Iggy just lies there, stiff, only moving in response to the pressure on her ribs-

There’s a sharp, rasping breath, the sound of wet gurgling as Merle encourages her, winding an arm under her neck to help her sit up. When she’s too weak to do that, he turns her on her side again, letting her puke and sputter until her lungs are empty.

Her breath evens out, groaning as she feels around with her broken arm. “Chi-“

“I’m here,” he says, and he’s already kneeling in the pool of her vomit so he can crouch down to look at her. Her face is pale, her eyes distant and disoriented as they try to train themselves onto something steady. He wraps his arms around her, lifting her against his chest and holding her close as he cries into her hair.

Her arms move against his sides, limply coming to rest around his hips. Her head shifts on his shoulder, burying her face into his neck as she trembles against him “Home?”

“Yes, yes Iggy,” he says as he rocks her back and forth, and the two of them laugh. “We’re home.”

#

Lup can see the top of Taako’s hat between the gap in the curtains. He stands beside Magnus, the two washed in the milky glow of the enchantment that encircles the house, a round, luminous shield that sends a shimmering filter over the world outside, the details dyed a soft white that makes the imposing tendrils whirling like liquid opal in the distance just a little less threatening. Still, she feels her heart lurch as they approach, curling out and upwards, probing for the Light hidden within the recesses of the ship Davenport had launched just a little bit ago. 

The ground shakes beneath them; not the long, monotonic hum of an earthquake dancing below the planet’s skin, but a harsher, absolute explosion, a deliberate act of destruction challenging them from afar. The baby in Lup’s arms squirms, tiny face contorting before letting out a soft whimper that dies down immediately once she offers her finger for their dimpled hand to wrap around.

“Oh, Chicha,” Lup coos. The lump in her throat actually hurts from forcing it down, but she keeps her voice steady as she sing-songs her words. “Oh, darling, everything will be just fine.”

Barry does not have the resilience she does, his open heart bleeding out with the tears that soak his face, the wetness on his cheeks glinting in the soft glow of the abjuration spell outside. His fingers trace the outline of Ignacia’s face reverently, drinking in every coo and fuss as if he were dying of thirst. She can only hear the soft murmur of his words as he leans down to whisper them in the wisps of her hair, the form of each syllable lost on the dreamlike lilt of the sobs that leave him.

She adjusts herself in front of him, so the two infants are resting partially in both of their laps; they reach out to each other, looking over the other’s faces with a curious and familiar fascination. She thinks maybe they are too young to smile just yet, but their lips still quirk up at the sight of each other. They are the most content when the other is nearby.

“You two have to stay together no matter what, okay?” Lup says, biting down a sob that just threatens to escape; it makes her lurch, and her body protests from the residual aches of labour, from sleepless nights and tender breasts, everything that fucking sucks that she would keep just to bring these two precious bundles with her, if she could.

“The world can be very mean sometimes, sweethearts,” she coos, tears starting to fall on their swaddling clothes; she had laughed when she found out Merle could crochet. “But it will be very wonderful too, and you have to have each other’s backs through both.

“You two will become so, so amazing,” she says. Barry takes her hand, leans his forehead against hers. “You will do such wonderful things, and be kind and love, and it will be a privilege for everyone around you to watch you grow, you know that?”

The thinnest thread of light starts to present itself in her skin, a loose seam that mocks her as it is pulled, unravelling her slowly. There is suddenly so much to miss in this moment, so much she needs to take in at once but can’t; the quick rise and fall of her babies’ breath, the feel of their skin against her chest, the way their eyes begin to flutter close and their lips pout as they drift into fitful slumber, of the dimples on all of Chicha’s knuckles except the third on her ring finger and the one on Ignacia’s right cheek that only shows when she’s fighting to stay asleep. There’s so much to do but still the single thread multiplies like the end of a frayed rope, making her come undone.

“I love you so much,” she weeps, and it’s stupid, so stupid, because it’s not like they’ll remember her voice, or her words. They’ll only get to keep her presence in scraps, and she will take nothing but the stained baby blankets they were wrapped in for the first time, and locks of their hair like outlandish scrapbook mementos, and all of it will lose their scent after another century and she knows when that day comes it will be so unforgiving when it shreds her heart to pieces.

They are both alight now, their glow filling the room with a soft, almost holy hum, and she takes one last moment to kiss each baby on the head before letting herself unravel, letting herself be glad for the warm room with books stacked to the ceiling and the family downstairs with a big kitchen and good food, big enough for the two to bustle around and learn the recipes she left them while someone else teaches them how to whisk the batter, hand over hand, but she knows they won’t get it right not the way it needs to be done to get the cake to rise evenly or–

They unravel, and when they are rewound Lup feels like some of the threads are missing, like the patchwork fabric that makes her up is missing a few, vital pieces to keep her standing, and she clings to Barry, wailing on the deck of the Starblaster, uninhibited as she mourns the loss.

The babies lie in their crib, fast asleep, unaware of what they’ve missed.

#

Chich follows dutifully as Iggy is hauled from the docks of Bottlenose Cove up the seaside into a snug little beach house, a dwarf-sized home where the doorframes are too low for him to walk through at his full height and the ceiling keeps brushing against the top of his head. He doesn’t let himself collapse until they’ve bandaged her arm in a splint, tucking it against her chest as they fold her up into a child’s bed she barely fits into; he sits on the floor, propped against the mattress where her other hand hangs over the edge to feel him there, and promptly nods off.

He wakes up with a kink in his neck and a feverish shiver. Their bags and memorabilia are set out by the bedside table along with scraps salvaged from what must have been the wreckage of their vessel, and as he staggers to his feet someone slips a mug into his hands that radiates warmth up his arms. Cinnamon and honey waft through the air under his nose, a tumult of hushed voices echoing from the floor below overlapping as they rush through _is she okay?s_ and _when the fuck are Lup and Barry going to show up?s_ and _what a mystery of a machine you pulled out with them, sir!s_ and-

“Easy, bubbeleh.” There’s a voice by his side, a high-pitched lilt taking on a tone that puts him at ease but is also too soft to be characteristic of it. Someone wraps an arm around his shoulders, three layers of shawl draping the faint scent of perfume over him that leads him into a plush little chair with arms that dig into his sides. “You two fuckin’ aced that landing, huh.”

The elf that sits him down kneels in front of him, investigating his face with a pinched expression that curls the the corners of his mouth and smudges the mascara that lines his tired eyes. “Drink,” he instructs, and Chich brings the mug to his lips. It’s really good.

“This is good,” he says dumbly. The elf in front of him smirks, a manicured hand patting him on the cheek.

“Man, you really got the brains knocked outta ya,” the elf cackles to himself; his voice is light, nonchalant, but his hands shake hard enough to make the golden bangles around his wrist tinkle like tangled wind chimes. “All your mother’s face but not much of your dad’s smarts, yeah?”

“Smart enough to get my ass here,” Chich says, in lieu of another, better comeback. “Scared I’ll steal the spotlight, hey uncle Taako?”

Taako’s smile widens, beginning to reach his eyes. He stands up, grunting when his knees pop, and wraps his arms around Chich. The hug is awkward, and Chich doesn’t reciprocate, only clutches his mug tighter. “It’s good to finally see you again, kid.”

“I guess,” Chich says. His head still aches, his body still slumped like a bag of rocks, and all he really wants to do is join Iggy and nod off again.

Taako doesn’t seem to recognize his trepidation; if he does, he doesn’t give any indication. “Listen,” he starts, holding Chich’s face in his hands too intimately. The contrast between the familiarity of the face in front of him – the same curved nose and sunken eyes he finds in his own reflection – and the awareness of the fact that this man was a stranger is almost dizzying. “We didn’t want to overwhelm y’all right after you touched down, but I couldn’t let your parents not know.”

There’s a sound from downstairs akin to fabric ripping, then a crash and a crescendo of protests and assurances as hurried footsteps reverberate through the wooden foundation of the house. Voices start to echo up the stairs, urgent as they make their way closer before a horde of bodies push their way through the threshold of the cramped bedroom.

Taako is on his feet immediately, ultimately failing to get the small mob of people to settle down. “Taako,” one of them says, a handsome man with a killer jawbone that takes his uncle’s hands tenderly as he takes in the scene in absolute befuddlement, “could you please tell me what in the world is going on-“

“Not right now,” Taako whispers, both of their voices falling on Chich’s deaf ears as he eyes the two leading the fray. He gets up to face them, and the world spins around him and the mug shatters at his feet and when did the wall become the ceiling-?

“Oh gods catch him-!” a gruff voice panics, and then two sets of arms are below him before he can hit the floor, two sets of eyes staring down at him in fear, in awe, in disbelief. 

“Easy, easy,” the man above him says. Chich can’t see his eyes behind the glint of his glasses, but his smile is wide and genuine, his embrace soft and sturdy as he slowly brings Chich upright again with almost irreverent care. The woman beside him says nothing, a hand cupped over her mouth as she stares teary eyed, her hand trembling violently as it reaches to touch him but stops short, almost afraid to bridge the gap only to discover that he was just a cruel illusion. 

“Chicha,” the man continues, “are you-?“

“Chich,” he hisses, even before the haze of his mind starts to clear. “Just Chich, not like you guys would know.”

He regrets his words, an impulse left unchecked in the blend of confusing recognition and bitter happiness that paints their tedious reunion. The man – his father – seems to deflate; his mother is forced back as if she had just been dealt a physical blow, her long ears bowing under the weight of her sorrow.

“Of course,” she says; her hand falls away from her mouth, the other clenching itself into a weak fist before both drop limply by her sides. “Of course.”

“Mom,” Chich starts, rolling the word around on his tongue, testing its single syllable weight, wondering how it could be so heavy. “That was mean of me.”

“But it’s true,” Lup says, and she inches forwards hesitantly, still keeping her distance. A tear falls from her eye. She wipes it away furiously. 

“It is,” Chich concedes.

They stare at each other for a long time, and the room is quiet but for Iggy’s rhythmic breathing. “Is your sister okay?” Lup whispers.

“Merle told me she’ll be fine,” Chich replies. “I hope that’s true.”

Lup laughs, a gentle, sorrowful little tune, Barry smiling beside her as awed tears stream down his face. The room seems to exhale around them, a shaking relief of a breath.

“Your uncle and I,” Lup starts, and she’s still laughing to herself a little bit as she stares down at her hands as they fiddle with the end of her dark robes – Chich stops himself from asking where she got her sweet threads – and start inching their way closer again. “We were always too honest for our own good. We never knew how to not be blunt, and it got us into so, so many messes.”

She looks up to the ceiling, a futile attempt to keep her tears at bay before her hand moves, just a little bit closer than before. Testing the waters, ready to retreat at his provocation. 

“I don’t know if you get that from me,” she continues, her voice thick, her Adam’s apple bobbing painfully in her throat, “if you can even inherit that, crap, Barry - ask your dad, he’s all about that nerdy – fuck, I don’t know.

“I don’t know if you learned it,” she continues. Another daring inch forward, before Chich tries to take the journey as well, realizing he wants to meet her halfway. The grain of the wood floor on the back of his hand is rough as he slowly, slowly reaches forward. “I’d love to know the person you’ve learnt to be, every bit of it, if you’d let me, if I can earn it, any way I can.

“I want your honesty,” she says. Their hands are close; he can feel the brush of her fingertips. “I want everything, but I don’t want you to pretend you’re okay with being near people, being near me, if you’re not, if you’re angry with me, because I need to know if you are, baby.”

“I don’t know what I am,” Chich says.

“I know,” Lup breathes. She closes her eyes, and tears tumble down her cheeks. “You don’t have to be anything. You don’t need to know how you feel about me, because I don’t care as long as you’re safe and happy. And I don’t care if you don’t want to let me share a piece of the reason for that.

“I want to be,” she says, opening her eyes again, and her face is earnest, pleading. “We want to be. We want to know every bit of you honestly, every bit of you and your sister. We want to know all that we’ve missed, and see everything from here on out so we don’t miss anything else, and learn who you are, because just seeing you here I know just how incredible you two have become, and I am so, so, sorry that we were never there to give you the love and strength and presence you two deserved to help become. And I understand if having to cultivate that strength and love yourself like you have so bravely done has been too much to consider letting me in.”

She takes the leap, bridging the gap between them. Her hand his warm around his, and it feels so, so good, and if he weren’t so scared of what the newness of his parents entailed he would leap into her embrace, fall into the love that is there, openly and unconditionally waiting for him. If he refuses it, he knows it will still be their – pained and anguished, but always and unfailingly there, having always been, and always will be.

“I want to be your mother,” she says, “I will be there, for everything from here on, if you’ll let me.”

Chich takes in a shaking breath, and squeezes her fingertips.

“I’d like to give it a try.”

#

Chich hides himself within the shade of the front porch as he watches Iggy mill around the tattered remains of their engine, Davenport and his father scratching their heads as they poke around the underbelly of its waterlogged and fizzled core. He can’t smell the sour burn of metal and copper wires and arcana gone rogue from way out here, instead taking in the smell of cooking coming from inside the bustling house behind him. It’s not his, not his immediate family’s, but if Magnus’ towering wooden monster of a cabin had enough space to house two dozen dogs he sure as hell wasn’t going to let his niece and nephew sleep anywhere else in a bed that wasn’t of his own making.

They were nice beds, with king sized mattresses and ornate head frames, with built in wooden clasps carved by hand to keep the plush sheets tucked into the bedspring. They were soft, and warm, and waiting for them to absolutely be ruined once Chich and Iggy claimed them for a four-hour long nap.

“Ah, man, no canopy?” Iggy had joked, uttering a jab about how she wasn’t going to be able to lounge in the lap of luxury with her face pressed into the duvet, her smile so wide that it looked ready to split her face in two. But Magnus had already begun to fret over the little detail, and before she could ease his worry - because no, Magnus, the beds are amazing, you don’t have to – he was out the door to his workshop.

“I’ll make you the bedposts!” he had exclaimed, rushing out to get the wood in the forested lot a mile north of Raven’s Roost with three mutts trailing at his heels, almost as eager as he was. “I swear you’re gonna love ‘em!”

The dogs wind their way between Iggy’s feet now, running back and forth between the chew toys in Angus’ grip and the familiar guests in the house and these two new, fascinating strangers, so overwhelmed by the possibilities. The only difference between them and Chich is that he hides his enthusiasm much better. Taako’s really helping him fine tune his apathetic sprawl.

“Aw, nice try you guys,” Lup calls to Barry and Iggy from the lawn chair beside him in the shade, her bare feet propped up on the porch railing. “You’ll get it next time, I’m sure of it.” 

Further down the lawn, the engine stammers out a worrying, repetitive clank, coughing up dark grey smoke in massive plumes. There is an outline on both their faces where the soot caught their faces around their glasses, all the more highlighting their bewildered eyes.

“What in the seven hells did you do?” Chich adds, and Iggy curses at him.

“Hey!” Lup says, indignant, elbowing him under his ribs. “Watch your fucking language.”

“Wonder who I get it from.” 

He watches his mother smirk out of the corner of his eye, adjusting her sunglasses as she settles deeper into her seat. She leans over to him, lays her head on his shoulder so her hair tickles at his neck, her ear whacking his chin as it twitches with laughter.

“Do you think we should help?” she asks; she seems to be soaking in his presence like a cool breeze, content just knowing he’s there.

Chich watches as something ignites at the source of the thick clouds emanating from the remains of their vessel. A small flame starts to take root in the core, orange tendrils licking back and forth as the metal peels apart, falling into different, indeterminate pieces. Barry, ever the cautious man and the careful father, forces Iggy back up the lawn despite her protests, running circles around the situation a bit too literally, and Davenport just laughs into the fingers pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Nah,” he shrugs, “let the nerd crew do what they do best.”

“We can hear you two, you know,” Iggy mentions as she strolls closer.

“I didn’t think you were paying attention over your nerd shit.”

“Nice,” Lup scoffs, raising her hand. Chich meets it in a meticulous high five, their fingers sliding smoothly off each other’s. 

“If you think it’s so easy, why don’t you come help us out?” Iggy asks, hands on her hips.

“And get my ass blown up because of you guys?” Chich says, raising an eyebrow. “I’ll pass, babe.”

“I swear to gods-” Iggy hisses, and before Lup can let out a whoop of laughter she has her hands interlaced with her daughter’s, a foot in her stomach to keep her back as Chich runs to the other side of the porch in search of safety. “Ma! Lemme at him!”

“Enough,” Lup says, in as much as a sober tone she can muster, “or I’ll ground both of you.”

“What?” the twins say in unison, then, “Come on, mom.”

“Don’t you two give me that,” Lup retorts. She pinches Iggy’s cheek affectionately before sending her away and back into the yard. “I carry the momly authority!”

“Shit,” Chich complains as he flops back down into the plastic chair, its legs scraping against the patio with a pathetic, nasal screech. “I thought you were cool.”

“I gave up being cool when I popped the two of you out,” Lup says. “That’s what you sacrifice, when you become a mom.” She straightens her sunglasses, slurping her drink from a colourful straw; a little concoction Taako had laughed about when Chich asked for one, explaining himself with the words, ‘you better start off with somethin’ a lil’ lighter, Chi-Chi.’

“Got to keep the killer bod though. Dad was pretty happy ‘bout that,” she mutters, laughing to herself.

“Gods- really, Mom!?”

Lup snorts as Chich pretends to gag beside her, swatting his shoulder. “Man, ‘betcha really regretting spending all that time to come all the way here.”

Iggy is back by her father’s side now, the two dousing the fire in a blanket of magic that snubs it out. The two are laughing, their hair singed, their hands covered in soot and grease that smears over their faces as they wipe at their sweaty faces. They work just a little clumsily, and it’s almost akin to the synchronization between him and Iggy all those years ago, when they passed tools from hand to hand and hopes of cozy beds and lazy days and the trick to making that one recipe just right were mentioned in wistful voices like distant dreams. Even now, after finding what he might tentatively begin to call home, he doesn’t know where to go from here; the path ahead is still as open as the link between different worlds, and infinite opportunity, a definite possibility for something new to discover.

He doesn’t plan to leave; he doesn’t know if he plans to stay. But those opportunities don’t nag like something incessant anymore, an obligation to find a long lost family or leave a planet soon to die, spitting up ash and magma from its turbulent core. Here he can think, and Iggy can work and fall asleep in her aunt’s vast, echoing library, and he can help his mother with the belts so she can see their home, thank the graves of his Ma and Pa in person without harried anxiety over her children’s fate. They can be hassled and loved relentlessly, by overactive dogs and uncles and cousins all adopted, like them, into a ragtag, happy family. For now, he can settle for that experience, beginning to wear it in like an old pair of his favourite shoes, for now the weight of his mother’s head and the warmth radiating off her enough. For now, he is happy, and that is enough.

“Nah,” he says. “I don’t regret a single thing.”

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at @daisybrien im dying
> 
> edit: yall have been so supportive, and since some of you guys want to enjoy more of this little universe you can pop some ideas for me to write in the comments! no promises, but id like to know what you guys liked most and what yall want to see!


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